Invisible
by Disgruntled Peony
Summary: Just a little something I wrote while waiting to leave my mom's office....


Title: Invisible
    
    Author: liz_Z
    
    E-mail: liz_Z@secret-agent.com
    
    Category: Angst
    
    Rating: PG
    
    Season/Sequel info: Takes place right after 'Enemy of my Enemy'.
    
    Spoilers: Yeah.  Lots.  The whole freakin' story is a spoiler, to some degree.
    
    Disclaimer: Own 'em?  Own 'em?  I don't own 'em!  Why would you think I owned 'em?
    
    Author's notes: I wrote this while sitting in my mom's office building, waiting to be able to go home.  It probably ain't that good.  But hey, I was bored.
    
    Invisible.
    
    That was all he was.  Invisible.  An invisible man, an imaginary friend, something you couldn't see when you looked in the mirror.
    
    He had tried to be more.
    
    He had tried to help people, had tried to rescue them from their problems.  Had tried to use his gift, his curse, for a cause he never would have chosen for himself, but had eventually taken on as his own.
    
    It hadn't been enough.
    
    Time and time again he had failed.  With Jessica, who had trusted him and in return had been given only fear.  With Allianora, who had given her life for someone who at the time didn't think of himself as worth saving.
    
    With Kevin.
    
    Oh yes, with Kevin.
    
    Kevin had gone down in a spray of bullets, and the only hope for redemption had gone down with him.
    
    True, there had been a temporary reprieve now and then.  A Keeper here, a paranoid partner there.  Friends, both of them.
    
    Friends he endangered weekly.
    
    He tried to protect them, tried to defend them.  But it was impossible to protect them from the madness, to defend them from himself.
    
    He couldn't stand it any more.
    
    The invisibility.  The madness.  The counteragent, his own personal leash.  The look of fear he sometimes saw, buried deep in his friends' eyes.
    
    It had to stop.
    
    The insanity had to end somewhere.  Whether it was by a bullet or on the operating table, some way or another he would eventually find that the craziness was over.  But until then, he had no control.
    
    He was a puppet.
    
    A pretty little toy held up with strings that people pulled left and right, spinning him in myriad directions until he didn't know where he had come from or where he was going.  No way to tell which way was up and which way was down.  Nothing to do but what they told him, his life far from his own.
    
    It HAD to stop.
    
    He was tired of being the good guy, the little golden-boy who did what he was told and kept his mouth shut.  He had always been a rebel.  Why was he taking this crap now?
    
    The counteragent.
    
    It was the only thing that kept him from sticking it to the fat man and leaving outright.  It was the only thing that could keep him from spinning completely out of control.
    
    And it was fast becoming useless.
    
    Very soon, the madness would come and no amount of counteragent would be able to keep it at bay.  The insanity, the hateful thoughts, the inability to keep himself from doing and saying things he knew he would regret... all of that would become a way of life.
    
    But there was something he could do.
    
    He knew that as he held the gun in his palm, ran his fingers across the cold metal.  What he held in his hands was not a weapon, but a solution. A solution to a problem he had been struggling with for the last two years.
    
    And yet....
    
    And yet he hesitated.  Stopped in mid-motion as he placed the gun in his mouth.  Froze when by all rights he knew he should have been pulling the trigger.
    
    He couldn't do it.
    
    As much as he hated what was going on, as much as he wanted the mind-numbing torture to end, he was still unable to take his death into his own hands.
    
    If he pulled the trigger, they would win.
    
    Arnaud, Stark, Simon Cole, everyone who had ever wanted him dead....  They would win without doing a thing.  He wasn't about to give them the satisfaction.  He had vowed long ago they would never win. 
    
    Never.
    
    He let the gun drop to his lap and felt the tears begin to fall.  Tears of sorrow, tears of regret.
    
    But underneath it all, tears of guilt.
    
    He had been unable to end it.  He had as good as sentenced his friends to death at the hands of a silver-eyed madman.  It was a thought too painful to stand.
    
    And yet he stood it.
    
    He dried his eyes and set his jaw, stuffing all his feelings back inside, back into the place he had made for them long ago.
    
    This was his burden to bear, and he would bear it.
    
    He would bear it with a heavy heart, with empty hands, and a quicksilver barrier between him and the rest of the world.  Because that was what it meant to be the invisible man.  That was what it meant to be....
    
    Invisible.


End file.
